Finance System Innovators

Innovation for Finance - A Breakthrough!

2009-04-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

Dynamic words we are obsessed with: optimization, reduction, alignment, integration, operational execution, performance, flexibility, planning, forecasting, budgeting…Wait, the last three words don’t really fit in the paradigm of the others. If we played a word association game, how can we link three dynamic critical applications - on which every finance department worldwide is focused, with the

A letter to the CIO we'd like to see...

2009-04-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

Dear CIO,I bet you never thought this day would come…me writing with good news that my team in Finance will be submitting fewer IT requests. Go figure (pun intended).Turns out there’s a new way for my staff to manage more of the data, processes and workflows that your team has been handling for us from the finance and BI systems. No more resources needed to manually code and manage this. We can

Closing Faster

2009-03-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

This is the third in the series of posts about 2009 Finance System priorities following discussions with Rob Kugel of Ventana Research and the executive team from Star Analytics. After reviewing Resolution #1: Focus attention on more strategic activities and less on transactions processing, and Resolution #2. Improve planning effectiveness, here's the next area Kugel recommends that you

Information Week: Data access & integration hurdles

2009-03-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Better data access and integration tops the list of priorities in the new "2009 InformationWeek Analytics/Intelligent Enterprise.com Reader Priorities" report. Doug Henschen notes, "...many companies still struggle with the basics of information management. After all, you won't be worrying about reducing data latency and supporting faster decision-making if you're still stuck at the first-level

Is Innovation Magic?

2009-03-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

There seems to be this perception that if you are introducing innovation or a new way to capture information and, as yet, no one else is doing it that way that it must be magic. Hardly. The paradigm of "thinking outside the box" is about enabling a perspective that has either been overlooked or underutilized. The simple concept of combining finance data with operational data should not be new

Planning Your Assumptions

2009-03-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

Probably every budget ever created was out of date before it was even completed, so the smarter finance innovators have adopted (or are at least moving towards) a continuous planning cycle, where real-time planning occurs in response to real-world events and new information, whether actual past results or better assumptions about the future.So it's a welcome development that CFO Magazine is

Better Bottom Line Decisions

2009-03-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

Right now who doesn't want to improve their bottom line? To help with this CFO Magazine and SAP are sponsoring a webcast on Improving Cost and Profitability Decisions in a Challenging Economic Environment. There are many well-defined methodologies, techniques and tools to measure both costs and profitability, and everyone should be aware of these (and ideally applying them to their businesses).

2009 Finance System Resolution #2: The Best Laid Plans

2009-03-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Here are more outtakes from my conversation with Rob Kugel of Ventana Research and the executive team from Star Analytics. The discussion focused on how the economic meltdown is impacting senior executives in corporate finance departments and how technology can help.If you’re making headway on our previous post about Resolution #1: Focus attention on more strategic activities and less on

Gartner BI Summit 2009 Day 2

2009-03-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Since I am attending the Performance Management Track, it has a decidedly PM feel to the conference. I can't judge the total audience except from the perspective of the Keynote attendance. The group is shy. During the "Comparing the Megavendors" session Bill Gassman was trying to solicit feedback from the audience (a packed house) and the attendees were reluctant to share their experiences and

Thoughts from the Gartner BI Summit

2009-03-08T21:21:00.001-07:00

Only marginally into the BI Summit, but have already had the realization that the Performance Management sessions will be under-attended. Business Intelligence is the domain of IT, but Performance Management is in the hands of the business. Corporate Performance Management, the term which Gartner has chosen to use to refer to those financial applications that are the mainstream of corporate

Thought of the Week

2009-02-27T08:07:00.000-08:00

Where exactly did all the money from everyone's 401K's and the bank's balance sheets go? I know I don't have it. Maybe it disappeared into the cloud?

Thought of the Week

2009-02-20T09:04:00.001-08:00

What happens to the economy when the banks (e.g. Citi or Bank of America) that are too big to fail, fail?

2009 Finance System Resolutions: Hunker Down or Thrive?

2009-02-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

I recently caught up with Rob Kugel of Ventana Research during a conversation with the executive team from Star Analytics. One of the most interesting parts of the discussion centered on how the economic meltdown is impacting senior executives in corporate finance departments and the ways technology can help.Kugel mentioned, “Unfortunately, the financial meltdown has driven many senior financial

Thought of the Week

2009-02-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

Even though companies have collectively spent billions of dollars on Business Intelligence applications, it's still frightening how much financial reporting at major enterprises is still done using spreadsheets...

A Cloud Over Your Financials?

2009-02-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

With all the hoopla recently over cloud computing, I’ve been wondering if companies would be willing to entrust their sensitive and confidential financial data (including financial transactions, financial and statutory reports, etc.) to the cloud. I have little doubt that small companies and even large enterprises will eventually manage (and more than a few are already managing) many forms of

Thought of the Week

2009-02-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

Many businesses are cutting their spending because revenues are down, and those cuts in spending in turn cause other businesses to lose revenue, and so cut spending, and so on. When does this spiral end? Why don't all businesses just fire all their employees, and cut their spending to zero? That way everyone can at least break even...

Can we really afford to hide?

2009-02-04T16:42:00.000-08:00